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Continuous investment at Mirion Technologies awarded with a Factory of the Future Award

March 5, 2019

During the fifth edition of the Factory of the Future Awards ten companies had the honour of receiving the title of Factory of the Future, the award granted by Sirris and Agoria to companies that best succeed in reconciling the technologies of the future with work tailored to people and the environment. One of the winners is Mirion Technologies, producer of detectors for the identification of nuclear radiation.

One of the key objectives of Sirris and Agoria is to enhance the contributions of the technological industry to a prosperous and sustainable society. Together with various partners Sirris and Agoria support manufacturing companies to achieve this, for example through the ‘Factory of the Future’ project, in which an award is granted each year to the best students of the class.

Factories of the Future invest in digitisation, smart processes and products and in global production, while also thoughtfully dealing with energy and materials and paying attention to involvement, creativity and autonomy of their employees.

This year the ten winners received the title of Factory of the Future from the Flemish Prime Minister Geert Bourgeois. The awards were given to BMT Aerospace, Bosch, Colruyt Group Fine Food, Duracell, Janssen, Lavetan, Mirion Technologies, Niko Group, Materialise and Rf-Technologies.

Today, Mirion Technologies, with its 48 motivated employees and a turnover of 17 million euros, is the world leader in silicon-based particle detectors and European leader for its range of germanium-based detectors. Mirion Olen, founded in 1981 as Canberra Detectors, makes detectors to measure ionizing - or nuclear - radiation: gamma and X-rays and charged particles. These detectors are used for the analysis of the type, intensity and origin of nuclear radiation. They are used worldwide in nuclear power plants, laboratories and research centres.

Investing in growth, agility and networking

The factory in Olen is the benchmark for the entire Mirion group. Annual investments enable continuous improvement of quality and efficiency. In recent years, the company has invested heavily in its machinery, which has enabled it to raise the bar ever higher. The expansion is an important step towards sustainable growth: the lead time could be reduced from 8 weeks to 3 weeks and it is now equipped for ultra-high vacuum assembly.

In the standard segment, Mirion achieved a 30 percent growth, while the number of full-time employees remained constant. This is thanks to innovative work organisation. For this purpose, the company works with an in-house planning tool developed to identify the workload and also potential issues, and a flexible matrix that summarises all tasks and competencies for the entire company, which allows it to see where the resilience can still be increased.

Mirion believes in an open culture and ecosystem: networks are an element which strengthens the organisation. The small team succeeds in closely monitoring and implementing the state of the art by bringing in expertise from outside, through customers and suppliers, but also through collaborations with universities and research institutes.

In the future, the focus will continue to be on sustainable growth, based on ‘business model innovation’ in a new market segment (medical) and with Vlaio support for R&D. The potential is to significantly increase sales again by 2023.

Wondering what a Factory of the Future looks like on the inside? From 21 March to 9 June Agoria will again organise a Factory of the Future Roadshow, which will visit 19 of the winners. This roadshow is your chance to see how Factory of the Future winners operate, to connect with them and test your own challenges against their experience. More information is available in our agenda.